Meat product manufacturer Ito Ham has taken the Japanese schoolgirl obsession to the next level by applying for the trademark rights to the word "High School Girl" (女子高生/Joshi-Kosei).
A pair of trademark applications (via the INPIT database) indicate that Ito Ham is planning a line of High School Girl® meat products, including meat pies, gyoza dumplings, pizza, curry and more. Either that, or someone in the office is just having fun.
Given that "high school girl" is a commonly used phrase, it seems unlikely -- though not impossible -- that the Japan Patent Office would grant a trademark registration. One thing's for sure, though: if the company could manage to remove the word from the public domain, license it and charge royalties for its use, they will be sitting on a gold mine worth more than any meat product out there.
[Source: CNET Japan via Slashdot Japan]
randomcommenter
Trademarking doesn't remove a word from the public domain, though. Copyrighting does. We still talk about those delicious things found in pies as "apples", despite "Apple" being trademarked, we still open "windows" to let in the breeze, despite "Windows" being trademarked, and, even on a company level, you can still open a store called "McDonald's Auto Repair", even though "McDonald's" is trademarked. Trademarks and copyright (and patent, for that matter) all function totally differently.
A trademark says you have exclusive right to the use of that term IN A SPECIFIC FIELD. So you can open an auto shop called "McDonald's", but you can't open a restaurant called "McDonald's". This particular case means that you can say "high school girl" as much as you want, even make "High School Girl" brand cosmetics, but you can't sell a food product named "High School Girl".
[]sdpu
They must really be struggling for ideas.
[]Neil Duckett
Struggling ... hmmm, if they can pull this off it's sheer brilliance!
[]Shoovi
...any way have you seen them? They are so cute. Their shirts become shorter and shorter ;) Well any way,This kind of market activity should have enormous positive effect on sales...
[]Rocket Kawaii
Everybody know that Porn sells, in Japan "High School Girl" sells even more! lol
[]That Girl
I don't think I could ever eat anything called high school girl
[]Rob
I could think of something about a high school girl I could eat
[]sanjuro
Maybe that's how they plan to recycle the dead kids from Battle Royale. Or they thought Sweeney Todd was actually a documentary on traditional British cuisine.
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